The present invention relates to a communication control system and a communication control method and more specifically to a communication control system and a communication control method having various charge payment functions accompanying to communication made through telephone lines.
Presently, it is required to make a user contract with an international communication company in advance in order to make overseas telephone calls from a mobile communication terminal such as a portable telephone and PHS. That is, the user is required to submit a predetermined application sheet to the international communication company by writing own name, address, where to make contact, a payment method and others.
At this time, while persons having credit cards can select xe2x80x9cPay by Creditxe2x80x9d as the payment method, persons who do not have such cards cannot but select xe2x80x9cPay by Billxe2x80x9d which requires a deposit after being examined by visiting the international communication company or by a letter, thus taking time until obtaining an approval.
There is also a method of utilizing a prepaid card for international calls. It enables the user to make an overseas call within the count of the card by inputting a card number recorded in the prepaid card from the portable telephone before dialing a called telephone number.
By the way, a plurality of international communication companies are now widely competing each other by arming with uniqueness of contents of services and their telephone charges are not uniform, thus causing large differences in the charges depending on time zones and countries (regions) to which calls are made. Therefore, persons who frequently make overseas calls naturally want to properly use the communication company whose telephone charge is the lowest depending on the time zone and the countries (regions) to which the call is made.
However, it requires the user to make user contracts with the plurality of communication companies in advance, taking much time. It is especially troublesome to pay a deposit to each communication company for persons who cannot have credit cards.
Although the use of the prepaid card allows the user to be released from the complicatedness of making the contract or paying the deposit in advance, there remains a problem that the user must buy a plurality of kinds of prepaid cards in advance to use the communication companies properly.
Further, while the user is required to input the number of own card recorded therein as described above in case of the prepaid card before inputting a country number, an area code number, a local office number and a subscriber""s number of the called side terminal, it has been inconvenient because a number of digits of the card number is relatively large (e.g., xe2x80x9c31-723-7381-5419-#) and the input has to be made from the beginning when an erroneous input is made even at one number on the way of the input. In particular, when the user uses many prepaid cards in succession in order to make a relatively long speech, the user is obliged to conduct cumbersome works of inputting the number of each prepaid card continuously.
While those described above are the points inconvenient for the users of international calls, there have been also inconvenient points for the company issuing the prepaid cards that it naturally costs to create the cards and to transport and to stock such cards having a value as a note.
While those described above are the cases when persons having been already using the mobile communication terminals make an international call from their own mobile communication terminal, they had to select one company from a plurality of mobile communication companies and to make a subscriber""s contract with a mobile communication company in order to start to use the mobile communication terminal.
They had to write own name, address, a method of payment and others to a predetermined subscriber application sheet and to stamp thereon in making such contract. At this time, the user is obliged to show an identification such as a driver license and a health insurance card. The user also had to wait for several hours until the result of examination whether or not the subscription is permitted is issued.
Therefore, there has been a request centering on the age of young people that they want to use the mobile communication terminals more simply.
Still more, it has been inconvenient for foreigners who temporarily stay in Japan for the purpose of business and sight-seeing for example that they cannot use the mobile communication terminals because they don""t have an address in Japan.
In order to deal with such a problem, there has been a method of renting the mobile communication terminals to persons who want to use them temporarily. That is, a rental company who have bought a plurality of mobile communication terminals from the mobile communication company and made the subscriber""s contracts rents the mobile communication terminals to the foreigners and others who want to use them temporarily.
Because the direct subscriber is the rental company in this case, the persons who do not have an address in Japan can use the mobile communication terminal.
Further, because the rental company takes the responsibility of the direct payment of the basic fee and rental fee, there is no demerit for the mobile communication company even if the actual user is a person who has no credit in Japan.
However, there is always a risk for the rental company that the user runs away with the mobile communication terminal without paying the high rental fee. It has been then necessary to ask to submit a large amount of deposit in advance in order to reduce this risk while hampering the convenience of good users.
Further, even if a certain amount of deposit has been assured, it is unable to eliminate the risk of causing a bad debt completely because there is no means for suppressing the rental fee exceeding that amount.
Still more, while mail-orders utilizing telephones and personal computer communications (including Internet communications) are now being actively conducted, no safe charge payment method has been established yet. Normally, the charge is paid by transferring to the bank account of the mail-order company after the arrival of merchandise or by paying to the delivery company in exchange of the merchandise when it is delivered (so called xe2x80x98substitutional paymentxe2x80x99).
However, in case of the transfer method, the mail-order company always has a risk of bad debt. The person who bought the merchandise is also required to transfer the charge by visiting a banking organ and has to bear the transfer fee.
Although no bad debt occurs for the mail-order company in case of the substitutional payment, there is a problem that the person who bought the merchandise has to bear the relatively expensive substitutional payment fee.
The present invention has been devised in order to solve the above-mentioned problems and its first object is to establish a telephone charge payment method which causes no risk of causing a bad debt of telephone charge. If the bad debt can be totally eliminated as described above, it becomes possible to make an international call from the mobile communication terminal immediately with a simple procedure without making a utility contract which requires the preliminary examination and the deposit with the international communication company in advance or without buying a prepaid card. It is also possible to properly use a plurality of international communication companies.
A second object of the invention is to establish a technology which enables any one to use mobile communication terminals with a simple procedure.
A third object of the invention is to establish a safe and simple charge payment method in the mail-order via telephone lines.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objects, an inventive communication control system comprises balance storage means for storing an amount of prepaid money of each caller who is the user of this system together with the caller number which is the number of a communication terminal used by the caller, charge storage means for storing the charge system per called location of at least one communication company, balance checking means for checking the balance of the prepaid money of the caller by searching the balance storage means with the caller number as a key, call permission determining means for determining the permission of a call of the caller based on the balance of the prepaid money, speech permissible time calculating means for calculating a speech permissible time by applying the number of the called terminal (xe2x80x9ccountry numberxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9carea codexe2x80x9d for example) inputted from the caller terminal and the balance of the prepaid money to the charge system of the communication company per called location, line connecting means for connecting the caller terminal with the called terminal via an exchange of the communication company, speech time measuring means for measuring the speech time between the caller terminal and the called terminal, line disconnecting means for forcibly disconnecting the speech channel between the caller terminal and the called terminal at the moment of time when the speech permissible time passes, telephone charge calculating means for calculating the telephone charge by applying the speech time to the charge system of the communication company per called location and balance updating means for subtracting the telephone charge from the balance of the prepaid money of the caller within the balance storage means.
Thus, the call is not permitted when the balance of the prepaid money of the caller is insufficient and the line is forcibly disconnected when no balance is left during the call. An amount of money corresponding to the telephone charge is paid from the prepaid money to the communication company later. That is, the communication company takes no risk of bad debt of the telephone charge as far as the call is made through this communication control system.
Therefore, the caller just needs to apply the caller number of own mobile communication terminal and to pay the prepaid money of certain amount or more and needs not to receive the rigid examination of the international communication company like the past in making an international call from the mobile communication terminal such as a portable telephone.
It is also possible to construct so as to record the charge systems of a plurality of communication companies per called location in the charge storage means of the charge system, respectively and to provide communication company specifying means for specifying one communication company based on a signal (specific dialing signal) inputted through the caller terminal so that the speech permissible time calculating means calculates the speech permissible time by applying to the charge system of the pertinent communication company per called location when the call is permitted by the speech permission determining means, the line connecting means connects the caller terminal with the called terminal via the exchange of the communication company and the telephone charge calculating means calculates the telephone charge by applying the speech time to the charge system of the communication company per called location.
As a result, the caller can freely select the communication company which is the most advantageous cost-wise among the plurality of communication companies depending on the time zone and the called country. An amount of money corresponding to the telephone charge is paid from the prepaid money to the selected communication company later.
Because each communication company takes no risk of causing bad debt of the telephone charge, the caller is not required to make a utility contract or to pay a deposit in advance per each communication company.
Although a certain process involving payment of cash is required in order to store the balance of prepaid money within the balance storage means as a matter of course, its complexity is much smaller than the case of making the contract and paying the deposit per each communication company.
Further, even when any communication company is selected, the telephone charge is unitarily cleared by reducing the balance of the prepaid money within the balance storage means, so that the payment management of the telephone charge is simplified.
Although the dialing signal, i.e., the specific number, needs to be inputted to specify one communication company, it can be done by properly using several patterns of numbers at most because this number is used to just discriminate the plurality of communication companies.
One communication company may be specified in the same time when the caller makes a connection by assigning a different number per each communication company as a telephone number inputted to connect to this communication control system from the caller terminal.
The caller is required to select the most advantageous communication company in the case described above because one communication company is specified among the plurality of communication companies as the communication company specifying means recognizes the specific dialing signal inputted from the caller terminal.
It is also possible to provide optimum communication company specifying means, instead of the communication company specifying means described above, which selects one communication company whose telephone charge is the lowest by applying the called number (country number) inputted from the caller terminal and the current time and date to the charge system of each communication company.
As a result, one communication company whose telephone charge is the lowest in the current time zone is automatically selected and the convenience of the caller is further enhanced without inputting the number for selecting the communication company which has been judged to be the most advantageous by grasping the charge system per country (per region) and time zone per each communication company on the caller side.
It is supposed above that the subscriber contract of the mobile communication terminal as the caller terminal has been finished between the caller himself and the mobile communication company. That is, the person who already owns the mobile communication terminal is allowed to readily make an international call using the mobile communication terminal and to properly use the plurality of international communication companies.
Therefore, persons who cannot make the subscriber contract of the mobile communication terminal from the beginning, i.e., persons who have no address domestically or the minorities who has no guarantor, cannot use this communication control system.
However, the persons who have no credit and cannot make the utility contract of the mobile communication terminal can use this system by adding call restricting means for limiting the calling destination of the caller terminal only to the telephone number for connecting to this system.
The call utilizing this terminal is made always through this system by limiting the calling destination of the caller terminal to the telephone number for connecting to this system and its charge is always paid by the prepaid money within the balance database. That is, the risk of causing an unexpected telephone charge exceeding the balance of the prepaid money may be eliminated.
Therefore, it becomes possible for the system operator or the mobile communication company themselves to distribute the mobile communication terminals to which the above-mentioned call restriction is implemented to a large number of persons without examination. The persons who get the mobile communication terminals can make a call through this communication control system and the exchange of the mobile communication company after paying the prepaid money of certain amount or more.
It is noted that even though the call restricting means is provided, no trouble occurs in the speech thereafter because the caller is allowed to input the telephone number of the called terminal from the caller terminal and a speech channel is formed with the called terminal by the line connecting means after when the caller terminal is connected once to the communication control system, the balance is checked by the balance checking means and the speech is permitted by the speech permission determining means.
While the communication control system described above has been what is related to the payment of telephone charge of a portable telephone, it may be advanced by one more step and may be applied to a payment of charges of mail-order sales utilizing communication lines.
That is, the system comprises balance storage means for storing an amount of prepaid money of the caller in correspondence to the caller number, merchandise storage means for storing information on merchandise to be sold by the mail-order sales, balance checking means for checking the balance of the prepaid money of the caller by searching the balance storage means by keying the caller number when the caller terminal is connected to the communication control system, amount calculating means for totaling purchase prices of the merchandise specified by the signals inputted from the caller terminal, means for determining whether or not the payment of the charge is possible by comparing the purchase price and the balance of the prepaid money and balance updating means for subtracting the price from the balance of the prepaid money when the payment of the charge is possible.
After completing the payment of the charge of the merchandise as described above, the merchandise provider sends the merchandise to the caller.
In this case, the merchandise provider takes no risk of causing a bad debt at all and can recover the charge reliably because the mail-order sales can be made within the range of amount prepaid by the caller. The callers also have advantages that they can save time for transferring the charge and can save the money transmitting fee and the substitutional payment fee.